Ocean Accounts

Ocean Accounts are about making visible the connections between human wellbeing, ecosystem health, and economic sustainability.

As ocean health declines and demands on marine ecosystems increase, countries need better information systems to manage ocean use, protect biodiversity, and address climate impacts.

Ocean accounts provide a systematic framework for organising and presenting statistics about ocean and coastal ecosystems – their condition, the services they provide, and the human activities that depend on and affect them.

Built to align with the System of National Accounts (SNA) and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), they integrate fragmented data into a coherent evidence base for decision-making across sectors.

Ocean accounting reveals connections that standard metrics like GDP miss — who benefits, who bears the costs, and how communities depend on healthy oceans for their livelihoods and wellbeing.

This gives decision-makers a more complete picture to manage risk, guide investment, and ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes.

The main pillars of Ocean Accounts (Environmental, Economic and Social Accounts)

Ocean Accounts are integrated records of regularly compiled and comparable data:

• ocean environment assets (e.g. extent/condition of mangroves),
• economic activity (e.g. sale of fish),
• social conditions (e.g. coastal employment, community health).